It turns out my friend who believes it should never have been (re)made and refuses to ever view the new movie on principle is right and I, who thought it was worth a go, was utterly and totally wrong (God that was hard to write).
I managed to stay to the end, despite being tempted to 'Johnny come lately' join my principled friend and walk out, but admit I did miss 5 minutes in the middle when I dozed off. The cinema was fairly full, admittedly with people of a certain age, and the whole film managed to raise just two moderate titters (at a couple of mild slapstick moments).
The plot was stupid and unbelievable. Toby Jones is a great actor (his portrayals of Truman Capote and Hitchcock were magnificent) but he ended up looking stupid - something Arthur Lowe specifically refused to do when he played Mainwaring.
For reasons which are presumably something to do with 'modernising' the women have an equal role to the men this time. Catherine Zeta-Jones plays a ludicrous femme fatale German spy, and a major mistake is made in that we get to meet the battle axe Mrs Mainwaring. The whole point of the running gag through all the 80 episodes of the never to be bettered sitcom, was that - just like 'Her Indoors' in Minder - is that we should have to imagine her. Meeting her is akin to the unmasking of the wrestler Kendo Nagasaki. Once you know the reality, the joke no longer works.
Again Bill Nighy I admire hugely but rather than play Wilson he just (lazily?) played Bill Nighy. His performance did at least make me realise again just how good John Le Mesurier was. Similarly to spoiling the joke as we get to see Mrs (Elizabeth) Mainwaring, the other ongoing joke is spoilt when Nighy reveals that he (Wilson) is Pike's dad - doh. We suspect it but it is no longer funny once we know for sure.
On that note the tall one from The Inbetweeners was just embarrassing as Private Pike. Daniel Mays, who played Walker, reminded me more of a 1980's football hooligan than a wartime spiv, and even Bill Paterson's (as Frazer) main role was to employ the comic device of revealing that a Scotsman does not wear anything under his kilt (my sides did not split when this distracted the Germans).
In fairness Sir Micheal Gambon made a reasonable fist of Private Godfrey, although again the recurring joke of 'needing to be excused' was totally spoilt when he was seen peeing on Corporal Jones. And as for him (Tom Courtenay) the part was just awful. The writers obviously felt it was necessary for the elderly butcher to engage in a stunt so for no obvious reason he fell, in unconvincing fashion, off a cliff.
Over Christmas the BBC showed an excellent drama (We're Doomed! The Dad's Army Story) about the obstacles David Croft and Jimmy Perry had to overcome in the making of the original. John Sessions was a far better Captain Mainwaring/Arthur Lowe and even Hove's own Michael Cochrane outshone Sir Michael Gambon. I'd recommend catching up on that when it's back on I-Player rather than wasting your time going to the cinema to watch the 'I now agree it should never have been made' 2016 Dad's Army.
After all that I am off for a cup of tea in my favourite mug
and if I'm really lucky a piece of upside down cake, made by Godfrey's sister Dolly.
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